Turnover Margin and Predictions

Joe Fortenbaugh with a cool article.  Usually the kind of thing I like to research and I’m a little surprised I hadn’t thought it of it before.

I disagree with some of his conclusions (of course) because I think he looks too much at single seasons without looking at spreads of seasons for anomalous numbers.

First the link:  

Now the chart:

From this it is easy to look at 3-4 year spreads and ask “what number doesn’t fit”.  For example, Kansas City’s +9 in 2010 was out of character for them and corresponded with a somewhat improbable playoff run.

Looking at 2011 we see that Fortenbaugh highlighted Jacksonville’s jump, but the real anomaly was 2010, not 2011.  2011 was corrective.

So looking at this, the teams who I would expect to be “corrective” in 2012 would be (in order of confidence):

San Francisco     -15.5

Philadelphia      +13.5

Pittsburgh          +12.5

Tampa Bay         +11

I would normally expect Baltimore to improve by about +6 but the loss of Suggs may mitigate this improvement a bit.  I’ll leave it to you guys to decide whether last year’s dip was merely normal variation or a combination of weak offensive line play and aging playmakers.  You’ll recall Reed’s somewhat bizarre INTsplosion in a half season in 2010.  It could be that +2 is closer to the new normal for the Ravens.

I would like to point to Arizona.  A team I already thought was a bit remarkable, going 8-8 with no quarterback and trying to overcome heavy losses from the ’10 offseason.  Additionally we see that their TO margin also dove.  While this could directly correspond to their personnel problems, it could also point to a team that suffered bad luck and might be worth a couple more wins.

Finally, looking at Denver.  This is an interesting team.  Made the playoffs (and won a game!) last year with an absurd run of 4^th quarter comebacks.  Now they’ve replaced their awful QB with an all-time great.  It is impossible to predict exactly what Peyton will be, but it is fairly easy to project that he will be better than Ortonbow.  This is a team that could take dramatic steps forward, given the right Manning, similarly to Minnesota in Favre’s penultimate season.

Not predicting, just predicting.

Read more...

Diagnosing a Ravens offensive series

I just finished charting the second half of the Texans at Ravens playoff game, and I want to go through the series in which the Ravens scored their final FG.

As a season ticket holder, I attended the game in person. I have been very critical of Cam Cameron, as have most other fans I sit with. Cameron has taken a lot of criticism for this game, in particular the final two plays of this series. But after charting it, I’m not so sure he deserves the heat he’s taken. Were some of the play calls questionable? Could be. But after a long look, it’s now clearer why some of those calls were made, and I don’t think Cameron deserves the heat he’s taken over them.

The Set-Up
At this point in the game the Ravens offense was ineffective. The running game was getting between zero and five yards almost every carry. Joe Flacco was under a lot of pressure. To this point in the second half alone, there were a half dozen QB pressures or sacks by the Texans, and I charted eight blown blocks on Ravens drop-backs.

The Ravens take the ball over at their own 29 with 7:21 in the fourth quarter and a 17-13 lead. TJ Yates had just thrown his second interception.

1st and 10 @ Ravens 29 – I will abbreviate these plays as follows: 1-10 @ R29

The Series
1-10 @ R29 – Rice off left tackle is stuffed for a two yard gain.
2-8 @ R31 – From a run formation, JJ Watt comes off Oher’s attempted block to pressure Flacco, who steps up in the pocket and finds Pitta wide open in the middle of the field for a first down.

1-10 @ R44 – This is an important play, so I’m separating it. The Ravens are in an I-formation with Torrey Smith to the right, covered by Jonathan Joseph. The Texans are in a standard 3-4 formation. With the clock running, the Texans run blitz, throwing seven guys into the OL. The Ravens block with seven, which leaves single coverage with a deep safety. Before the pocket collapses, Flacco hits Smith on a quick slant for nine yards. The Texans sold out, Flacco read it and did a great job delivering the ball.

2-1 @ T47 – Hand off to Leach gets the one yard needed to pick up the first down.
1-10 @ T46 – Another run formation, another 1st down run, another stuff by the Texans, who are consistently beating their Ravens counterparts on the line.

2-9 @ T45 – The second important play. Here, the Ravens line up with three receivers, a classic pass formation. But the Texans don’t respond with the typical nickel defense; they’re still lined up in a 3-4 and clearly expecting run as they run blitz yet again. This time it’s six rushers (a seventh comes eventually, but not before the ball is out) on six blockers. Flacco again reads the rush and gets a very fast quick slant out to the right side, this time to Boldin.

The Ravens are now close to if not in field goal range. With the clock ticking, it will be just over 3:00 in the game by the next offensive snap. The Texans are clearly selling out on the run at this point, not even bothering to match up with the Ravens personnel on the prior play. And probably most importantly, the corners are giving the receivers the inside slant route, which Flacco has hit twice, both times before an overloaded rush can even apply pressure.

1-10 @ T31 – Rice rushes into the middle, this time for a gain of five yards. Houston takes its first time out at 3:04, clearly signaling they are going to make a stand here.

This is where the heat Cameron takes begins. Fans in the stands grumble that Cameron “better not get too tricky.” I agree with them. Everyone wants to see two runs. Bleed the Texans final two time outs, work to pick up five yards; if you do it, the game is virtually sealed, and if you don’t, you kick the FG and let Yates try to drive into the end zone which he’s only done once before.

But what I think we as fans miss is this probably isn’t the best way to play it. The first down actually holds great importance because it bleeds the clock. Assume each play takes just five seconds. With two time outs left, that puts the clock at 2:54 after the Texans take their last time out. If the Ravens don’t pick up the first, they kick on fourth down, kick off, and the Texans are getting the ball with 70-80 yards to drive, and likely between 2:30 and 2:45 to play.

But if the Ravens pick up the first down, even on this play, it changes the time significantly. There’s a time out on the first down at 2:59. A running play on first down, then another time out at 2:54, and the Texans are out of time outs. Two plays later after third down, the clock is at the two minute warning. And not just that…because of how close the clock is to 2:40, you actually can afford to run a passing play on either second or third down (as long as you run the other down), and still get the clock to the two minute warning. These open options make offense much easier to play and improve the odds of another first down, which ends the game. And if they don’t get the first again, they kick the FG, kick off and force Yates to drive 70-80 yards with between 1:40 and 1:55 to play.

2-5 @ T26 – The Ravens line up in a run formation, seemingly playing into the Texans yet again. The Texans blitz with six pass rushers, Ravens blocking with seven. The play is yet another quick slant to the right, the same that had worked twice previously. This time, however, Kareem Jackson did a great job getting up and jamming Boldin on the line. This knocked Boldin off the route, and the pass fell incomplete.

3-5 @ T26 – The Ravens line up with two receivers and two TEs. But just before the snap, Rice goes into motion wide to the right, leaving an empty back-field. Rice trips on his route, and the pass falls incomplete. This play likely works and comes close to, if not picks up, the first down if Rice doesn’t fall.

I want to cover the third down play first a moment. The situation is that the Ravens need to pick up a first down, or else the clock will be stopped with around 2:55 to play no matter what, and the Texans will still have at least one time out plus the two minute warning. This gives the Texans the ball plus 2:45ish to score a TD. While Cameron takes a lot of heat for this call not being a run, at this spot in the game, it actually makes little sense to me to not open up the play book and try whatever possible to get the first down. Perhaps he (or Flacco, if Flacco called/audibled to it) can take heat for the particular passing play being a fourth quick slant in seven plays. But running here actually makes less sense to me than passing, given the Texans’ dominance at the line of scrimmage.

The natural fan reaction becomes “It never should have gotten there! If you run on second down, you can run on third to pick up the first down or bleed the time outs!”

Thinking this through more, there are actually a lot of problems with this. First, with how great the Texans controlled the line, there’s no guarantee you can run on third down to have a high likelihood of picking up the first down. If Rice gets stuffed and it’s 3rd and four or more, a run is a very low percentage play, and you’re forced to pass anyway. Second, bleeding the time outs with almost three minutes to play actually carries very little value. They need more than a field goal, so they won’t need a time out to get the unit onto the field. And three minutes with the two minute warning is an eternity to drive the field.

Meanwhile, you have to look at how the game was going at the time. At this point, Rice had rushed the ball 19 times. He was averaging just under 2.7 YPC and had only three runs of more than five yards with his biggest a rush of eight. And the Texans were selling out on the run. Meanwhile, Flacco had just thrown two successful quick slants against a ferocious rush.

Suddenly it becomes understandable why those plays were called. The quick slant on second down seems in fact to be a pretty high percentage play. And there’s really little incentive to bleed time outs with so much time left.

With less than two minutes to play, I think it becomes a much different story. But in that situation, I actually think the play calling was solid if not very good. And considering it took me a day of thinking about it and an hour and a half to chart it to come to that conclusion, it shows why I sit on my couch writing amateur articles for no pay, while the experts make the big bucks to come to these conclusions inside of the 120 seconds they have before the play-call has to go in.

Read more...

R.I.P. Chesmu

Chesmu died today. Born Nov 5th, 2007, Chesmu the monkey was an avid Steeler fan that took up residence on the back of the Baltimore Ravens.

Chesmu died a fast and violent death Sept 11, 2011. As his broken body lay twisting on the ground, Ravens coach John Harbaugh showed Chesmu the ultimate sign of disrespect by dropping a deuce on his face despite already being up by three scores.

Chesmu will be remembered fondly by the city of Pittsburgh. His cousin, Corbin, a natural rival Ravens fan, climbed onto the Steelers back as Chesmu was laid to rest.

Read more...

Ravens and Air Coryell

Just after the Pittsburgh loss, we had an intense discussion about what ailed the Ravens offense. The discussion continued offline, but the general idea was that I thought that the Air Coryell was completely wrong with their players, and was failing.

After quite a bit of research, I wrote an article about it, which was published on Football Outsiders here. Short story: I don't believe Cameron's system was primarily the problem last year.

I'd asked Aaron Schatz for some data to help with this, which he graciously provided with the caveat that I give them the article first and decide if they wanted to run it. They did, hence the direction to their site (as opposed to publishing here). I may or may not follow-up on it. I have the content, just not certain about the time.

Read more...

Anquan Boldin and a Failing Offense

I’m trying to figure out how the Ravens offense has failed so badly. Not just in the Steeler game, but let’s face it, they’ve been mediocre at best all year. They’re 16th in points scored and 22nd in yards.

I think a big part of it we know was the offensive line. But I’m having trouble getting past the play-calling. I’m watching the Patriots, and the Packers yesterday, and even the Falcons who sucked but serve as a good example. I see something in their offenses that I don’t see in ours, and I’ve been trying to put my finger on exactly what it is, and I think I’ve got it although I’m not sure that I can express it that well.

I think the best one word for it: variety. Give me a sentence: The Ravens don’t seem to have as expansive a playbook as other NFL offenses.

There are a couple specifics I’d point out. The first is the use of a guy they went out of their way to get to solve their receiver problems. They brought in Boldin to bring a lot to this offense. And in the first half of the year, they used him a lot. Then, his productivity fell off a cliff. I took a look at this a bit closer. Below is a graph of the # of targets and receptions Boldin received by game, with a trend-line for targets.



I cannot explain this. You can see the declining trend. It gets horrendously worse if you remove week 5 where he only gets 3 targets and then weeks 12 and 13 where he gets 9 each. But even with them in, it’s basically a decline of an average of 0.42 targets per game. It’s not his catch rate, the 1st half of the season it was 56%, it was 58% in the second half. He had 71 targets in the first half of the year, only 43 in the second half. Worse than that…in the first 9 games, only once did he get less than 7 targets. The last seven games, five of them he had 5 or less.

So, in conjunction with this, I’m trying to think about not just why Boldin wasn’t getting targets, but how he is most effective. One of the plays I think saw the most success with Boldin in AZ was the quick slant. Get him crossing over the middle, get the ball out in front of him and let him run with it. Last year, in a dispute year, he ranked only 39th in YAC (according to Football Outsiders), though the previous two years he was 5th and 10th. I’ve charted 15 of the Ravens 32 halves over the regular season for FO. In that time, the Ravens ran a total of three quick slants. Two of them went to Boldin, both of those were catches for a total of 30 yards and resulting in more YAC (21) than the yards picked up on the throw itself (9). According to the FO sheets – I have full data from all weeks (just not charted) where they track which direction of the field the passes went – only 26% of all passes to Boldin went in the middle.

I feel like the playbook is severely limited. We don’t see those quick slants. We don’t see crossing routes. We don’t see a lot of the things so many successful offenses use. It really feels like it’s all outs, tosses down-field, screens, etc.

Now, I don’t know if Cam and the coaches just feel like Flacco’s too limited to throw these passes and/or run these plays. But they’re not there. Something fundamental about this offense is broken. And I’m concerned that it may not improve any time soon, at least under this coaching staff.

Read more...

Reflecting on a terrible football game

My dad and his cousin traded emails for a little while after the Ravens game, including me in the mix. I went to a neighbors to watch the Pack slaughter Atl in the second-worst game of the day and drink a good bit to drown my sorrows, so I missed much of it. Upon returning home, I replied. Below is the email - edited only to remove the swearing - because, as it turns out, it's pretty reflective of my general thoughts about the game.

Back when Patrick, Jim and I started this blog, Patrick and I disagreed about whether the Ravens/Titans '08/'09 season playoff game was a great game. Patrick eventually agreed that it was. He chatted with me tonight and said almost exactly what I say below to my family in the email...people will call this a great game. But it wasn't. It was a giant, sloppy mess, riddled with errors, played by two teams that hate each other, but neither acting like they wanted to win. With that said, onto the email.

Begin email:
The second half of this game was some of the worst football I’ve ever seen the Ravens play. This goes back to before the ’00 team when the Ravens flat out sucked. Both the offense and the defense failed on such epic level’s it’s beyond disgraceful. Cam’s play-calling wasn’t great, but for Ravens fans to blame it on him – and there are plenty right now – is laughable. One can easily argue stepping on the Steelers’ throats is the better move. However...
- You are winning by 14 points with one of the best defenses in the NFL, and
- You have all the momentum and the crowd dead silent.
The theme for the second half has got to be error free football. It literally CANNOT be anything but “go out there and try to kill these guys early in the second half, but DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES make any mistakes that gives them life. So let’s review what they instead do...

1) Ray Rice decides to carry the ball like a loaf of bread. Clark wasn’t even trying to strip him or punch it out, his hand just happened to hit it on the tackle and out it comes.
2) Flacco, under little pressure, decides to air it out to Heap in double coverage and puts it 5 yards too far for an easy INT.
3) Birk snaps the ball early and then doesn’t even realize it (how he doesn’t know Flacco doesn’t have it is beyond me) for another short-field turnover.
4) Flacco gets chased from the pocket. No one is open. He’s 9 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Throw it away, no grounding, no problem. With no real pressure on him, he instead simply runs out of bounds for a 9 yard loss. Um, WHAT???
5) Marcus Smith holds a special teams defender, nullifying a TD when the defender wouldn’t have even come close to Webb had he never touched him.
6) Flacco throws a pass to the only spot on the field that could get to Boldin without the two defenders covering him being able to make a play on the ball. Yes it was a low pass. It also hit Boldin in the chest. In the end zone. On 3rd down. FG next play.
7) On 3rd and 19 with 2:07 to play, the clock stopped, ball at the Steeler 38 yard line, the Ravens drop 8 into coverage and STILL allow the Steelers #4 receiver to get behind everyone, not only converting the 1st down, but setting up 1st and goal from the 5 which they eventually convert to a TD. I wrote this play up on the Ravens board and cut-pasted it below if you want to read more about how gigantic a failure this play was. Realize this was a thread blaming Mattison for this play failing, and my essentially saying, “Um, no, Mattison is in no way at fault.”
8) Cody gets a defensive holding penalty on a big stop on first and goal.
9) Flacco yet again fails to get rid of the ball before the pocket collapses on 3rd and 10 at mid-field with 1:10 to play and takes a sack, forcing the Ravens to take their final TO and suffer 4th and 18.
10) Flacco finds a wide open TJ Houshmazilly 21 yards down-field at the sideline with over 60 seconds to play. He hits him in the hands for a sure catch-and-fall-out-of-bounds leaving 60 seconds to go 35 yards to tie the game. BUT WAIT! NO! Hoashmazoad <> Championship and drops the ball. Game over.

Counting kicks, punts, etc up until Pitt is kneeling for the win, there were 80 total plays with some sort of football action associated with them in the second half. Those ten plays above are not tiny, semi-meaningless errors. They are GIGANTIC F******* FAILURES. 10 plays out of 80 where the Ravens completely, totally failed, in a half where all they had to do to win was play error free. It is hard to imagine an NFL divisional round playoff team capable of an error rate so high.

Assuming they watched, NE has to absolutely be licking their chops. The first half was almost as bad, on both sides. Even the two huge Ravens-turning plays were terrible plays on one or both team’s parts. Suggs got a nice fumble on his sack, but then 21 out of 22 players fail to realize no one has blown a whistle, so everyone stands there and stares at the ball till Redding comes from about 7 yards out, picks it up and reads a chapter of War & Peace before taking a leisurely stroll into the end zone. The other play, the Mendenhall fumble deep in their territory, was caused by Mendenhall rolling up on Kemo’s elbow…his own man knocked it loose.

Pundits and talking heads will spew garbage about what a hard-nosed, well fought battle this game was, and how great a game it was. But the truth is, it wasn’t. It was a terrible game where neither team played like they wanted to advance. Odds are pretty good New England will rout the Jets tomorrow, and then destroy the Steelers next weekend.

---------------------------------------- Posted to the Ravens message board ----------------------------------------
Such a gigantic f****** FAIL by the players on so many levels it's not funny. This isn't a busted defensive scheme, and it's stupid to suggest that we should have rushed more than 3 players on a 3rd and 19 when a receiver gets by people. Sorry [poster], I respect you a lot as a fan, but you - and anyone else trying to blame Mattison - are dead f****** wrong.

1) Nakamura gets called for illegal contact. They get a 1st down anyway.

2) Before the ball is thrown, Nakamura contacts his man 17 yards down the field and releases him to the deep safety. Now, you need to fully grasp the magnitude of this stupidity. First, if you're releasing a receiver, it's cause there's someone else short that you're worried about covering. I've got the TV on, paused at the moment he releases his receiver right now. Nakamura is 1/3 of the way from the hash to the sideline, at the Ravens 44. Draw a box from the middle of the hash marks to the Ravens 44 to the sideline to the Steeler 30...there is NO receiver there. How Nakamura doesn't turn his hips and run with the receiver is beyond stupid. Second, even if you are covering underneath, it's 3rd and 19...you don't release to cover an underneath route at the 1st down line on third and super-long. TURN YOUR GODDAMNED HIPS AND RUN WITH HIM YOU F****** IDIOT!

3) Nakamura releasing his receiver freezes Landry to the inside. The reason Landry's late on the outside coverage is cause he has to pick up Nakamura's man. Landry may be - IMO - the worst starting safety in the league, but he's not at fault on this play.

4) Webb completely fails on this play. Brown lines up on the Steeler 37. Webb is on the freakin' 50...seven yards in front of the 1st down marker. Webb doesn't seem to recognize it's a go route till Brown's in full stride on the Ravens 48, Webb on the 42 and Ben starting his throwing motion. This is beyond ridiculous. Watching it in full speed, Brown is in a dead sprint at the Steeler 42 yard line. That's 10 yards of dead sprint he's running before Webb decides he's gonna turn and try to run with him. Naturally, by the time Webb's hit his stride, Brown's behind him. Massive f****** fail by Webb. The only explanation is that he thought he had safety help over the top. Which he should have, had Nakamura not released his man to Landry.

So essentially I put 60% of the blame on Nakamura and 40% on Webb for completely blowing that play. Notice how 0% of the 100% total blame goes to Mattison. There's NO excuse for the players not executing on that play. None.

Read more...

What Ails the Ravens

In the last eight games, the Ravens have blown fourth quarter leads five times, and without a clock-killing drive against the Bucs, could have been in position to do it a sixth. All four of their losses were after holding leads in the fourth quarter, and four of their wins featured leads given up in the fourth quarter, only to later be regained.

Let that soak in for a second...the Ravens have surrendered a lead in eight of their thirteen games this season. I’m struggling to remember the Ravens surrendering eight fourth quarter leads over the previous decade.

Given that, it’s actually fairly easy to make an argument that the Ravens could be the only undefeated team in the NFL right now. It’s also just as easy to argue that the Ravens could be 5-8 and out of contention. I don’t see another team with such a razor thin margin between how good they could be, and how bad. So I’ve decided to try to cut deeply into what specifically it is that is wrong with the Ravens, and whether or not they can do anything about it.

Coaching
So much has been made of the coaching in Baltimore. Fans seem to fall in one of two camps. Either Harbaugh and crew are terrible and need to all (or some of them) be fired, or they’re doing a fine job coaching the team to one of the best records in the NFL The truth probably falls somewhere in between.

The coaching staff is clearly doing something right. The Ravens are 29-16 since Harbaugh and co took over, have won three playoff games – all on the road – and have yet to finish a season ranked in the bottom half of the league in points scored or out of the top five in points allowed (and are on pace to continue that this season). The offense is more productive than it’s ever been over a three year stretch, and the defense is still playing very good football.

But there are things about what these coaches do that are maddening. Three examples specifically, to show why people are so frustrated with the coaching.
1) Earlier I posted a little about the Ravens tendencies on third and short. They pass twice as often as they run, and play out of shotgun half the time and spread teams out even more. For a team with a strong run game and mediocre pass game, this is a disappointing trend.
2) Defensively they quit trying to put pressure on quarterbacks when sitting on a lead in the fourth quarter. They often go into a three-man rush and rarely use the zone blitzing schemes that are very effective at generating pressure even with four rushers. The disappointing play from the safety position (more on that in a moment) has resulted in an inability to effectively control the hurry-up offense when there’s no pressure on the quarterback. So why aren’t they using more zone blitzing, rushing 5+ and rarely using the three-man rush plays even late in games?
3) One fundamental issue has been Flacco’s snapping the ball with time on the clock late in games when trying to burn time. A specific example was the Ravens final drive in regulation of the Texans game. Flacco left 19 seconds on the clock, snapping the ball early. Had they snapped it at the last second each time, they’d have been able to call a run play on 3rd and 2, and run the clock down to the two minute warning. With those 19 seconds on the clock, the Texans were getting the ball with a two minute warning stoppage in their pocket no matter what the Ravens did on that third down.

Talent
There is no question this Ravens team has talent on it. The problem is, I think many people assume that there’s a great deal more talent than there really is. The result is a predictable underperformance compared with expectations. Three positions highlight a large gap between perception of and actual talent, but the reality is that the Ravens are actually lacking talent in a lot of key positions.

The three positions: The Ravens are perceived to have great talent at three positions that they don’t actually have. Michael Oher was at one time leading the Pro Bowl voting for AFC tackles. While he hasn’t been terrible, he certainly hasn’t been Pro Bowl caliber. He’s committed several penalties of all sorts. He’s not only been beaten regularly, but is regularly missing assignments and allowing rushers to come at Flacco untouched. He’s played well at RT, but has been average at best at LT.

Gaither’s absence has had a big impact on the entire line, not just with Oher’s shift. Oher’s move off RT forces Yanda away from RG where he has Pro Bowl talent, into RT where he is merely average. This has pushed Chester, an adequate backup but in no way a decent starter, into RG. With Birk showing his age, and Grubbs no more than an average LG, no one on the line is better than an average player, and overall the line is predictably performing poorly.

Ed Reed, while boasting an impressive four picks in seven games so far, is barely playing replacement level at safety. None of his four picks were “vintage” Ed Reed, reading the QB and jumping the route. They’ve come off tipped or badly overthrown balls, three of them he was far behind the play as it developed and happened to be lucky with the ball coming right to him. He’s often lined up deep and away from the LoS, where most of the action happens. He is no longer fast enough to jump routes. And he’s taking bad angles, which leaves him out of position in pass coverage, often resulting in long completions given up.

Largely this isn’t Reed’s fault. He’s the victim of a body breaking down from a mix of years of launching his 5’11, 200 pound frame into much larger bodies with abandon, and an impinged nerve in his neck that is both unfixable and very painful. In July I wrote that Reed should retire and I’ve seen nothing thus far that has changed my opinion.

And finally, Ray Lewis is, with 15 seasons nearly under his belt, a shadow of what he once was. He’s regularly blown off the ball, not getting off his blocks, slow in pass pursuit and missing tackles more than he ever has. He’s still one of the smartest and best at reading the play, which allows him to make up for his physical deficiencies. But those deficiencies are starting to have a significant bearing on how he’s able to impact the game.

Again, this isn’t Lewis’ fault. To know that he’s still able to play MLB at an average NFL level in his 15th season is an amazing accomplishment. Look back at some of the greatest LBs to play the game. Singletary. LT. Ham. Lambert. Butkus. Lanier. Virtually every great LB has been playing golf for two or three seasons by this time in Lewis’ career. Of the great LBs, only Junior Seau played significantly longer than Lewis has. And by this time in Seau’s career, he was starting half or less of the season and didn’t have more than 58 tackles in a season after his 14th year.

These three players, while creating an illusion of great talent due to name recognition where it’s actually average or worse. But they’re hardly the only positions where the Ravens lack even average talent. I’ve already covered the OL. The rest of it lies with the defense.

Reed isn’t the only problem in the secondary. Dawan Landry is a below average safety struggling to make even fundamental plays. The loss of Foxworth combined with the disappointment of Fabian Washington has created a vacuum at corner. And while Josh Wilson, Chris Carr and Lardarius Webb have played admirably for nickel-level players, they aren’t NFL quality starters. And Lewis, while just average at this point, remains the best linebacker on the team. There is no talent beside him at ILB, and if you count Suggs at DE – which is where he’s lining up most plays these days – there’s little to speak of at OLB either.

While the defensive line, particularly Suggs and Ngata, is playing quite well, and statistically they’re top ten in yards and top five in points, clearly the defense isn’t what it once was. Giving up long drives and fourth quarter leads is out of character, and the talent deficiency is a big part of it.

The Fans and Media
Okay, let’s get real for a minute. While this team has its problems, the level of crazy in Baltimore right now is off the charts. Fans and media are calling for the heads of coaches and giving up on games. Between message board watching and several chat conversations on Monday night vs. the Texans, I lost count of how many people told me some version of “game over” when the Ravens punted in overtime.

The Baltimore fan base has always been rabid. The media consistently paints the Ravens as the perceived bad guys fighting adversity. And the city has largely felt like they’re the step-children of the league, fighting for respect but preferring the role of underdog. Meanwhile, many believe the Ravens are an elite team that should be Superbowl contenders if not favorites. And while watching eight blown fourth quarter leads will wear on any fan, the reality is, the team is 5 games over .500 and two in front of any wild-card contender with three to play. They control their destiny to win the Superbowl, have not lost to anyone by more than five points and have the seventh highest point differential in the league.

The Ravens fan-base and some of the Baltimore media are making things out to be far more dire than they really are. While the Ravens aren’t the best team in the NFL this year, they’re without question in contention for the Superbowl. And fans of no less than 18 other teams would love to be in the position the Ravens are in, and enjoy the regular success the Ravens enjoy year in and year out.

Read more...

Some Ravens Numbers

In our email discussion thread, Craig made some commentary around analysis of certain situations. I've been watching the Pens/Flyers game tonight and decided to cut up some data during the game, to take a look at various situations to satisfy my own curiosity.

This is only partial data. As a Football Outsiders game charter, I've charted 20 of the Ravens 54 + 3 (OT) quarters across 8 of their 13 games. All data comes from their charting sheets and my personal charts.

One would have to assume that this data is representative of the whole, but I don't see a whole lot of reason to think it isn't. The only reason I could see is that of the 10 halves I've charted, six are first halves and four are second halves. Otherwise I don't think there's much to indicate this isn't representative.

- The Ravens run the ball a little over 55% of the time on first downs (last year they ran 53% of the time on first down). Their success on run vs. pass plays are pretty similar. They average 4.5 ypp on the pass, 4.2 on the run. But 53% of the pass attempts resulted in 0 or negative yards, while 17% of the run plays did.
- They run the ball 47% of the time on second downs, regardless of distance. On second and short (defined as 3 or fewer yards), they run 78% of the time.
- On 3rd and short, they run the ball only 33% of the time! They were in shotgun nearly 50% of the time, and had a 3+ WR set 67% of the time. Flacco has completed only 43% of all attempts (includes sacks) on those passing plays, 14% of those completions did not pick up the first down (sample size very small, so may not be truly represntative). Thus, the Ravens pick up the first down on third and short less than 40% of the time when they throw the ball. This, as compared to a 63% first down pick-up rate when they run on third and short.
- In the red zone, they run 60% of the time, though they run 76% of the time in the red zone on short yards to go situations. Inside the 3 yard line, they run ~60% of the time, the same percent of first/second down plays.

The bullet on 3rd and short is representative of why Ravens fans are generally frustrated with the coaching / offensive play calling. I've got an article brewing in my head breaking down the Ravens season thus far, and what's "wrong" with the team. I use the term "wrong" lightly, given they have four losses thus far...only so much can be wrong with such a team. Part of it is, in my belief, the coaching. There will be more around this in the coaching section I think.

In the mean-time, if there are any other particular stats anyone can think of they'd like to see, I'm happy to post them.

Read more...

Ngata and the Ravens OT win

I've replayed that final play - Josh Wilson's pick 6 to end the Baltimore @ Houston game - several times now. Haloti Ngata is the key to the play's success.

Ngata made a terrific move to get by the blockers. Houston double teams him with C-LG. Ngata starts to rush as if he's going right into the teeth of that double-team. Then he suddenly re-directs to his left, using his left arm to get outside the C, makes a swim move with the right and comes to the C's right, leaving the OG standing around looking for someone to block. The C was beat badly by the swim move and the RG couldn't disengage in time to pick him up.

Ngata comes free inside and bee-lines to Schaub. Schaub has to back-peddle, make an off-balance throw, and rather than deliver a bullet which could have been complete, he throws a soft duck that hangs in the air long enough for Wilson to jump on.

It was a terrific play by one of the league's premiere defensive players, and is the reason the Ravens won the game.

Read more...

TWO!!!

Thursday night football kicked off with a bang with two 6-2 teams facing off. The Ravens looked flat to start and it had the makings of a blow-out, but wound up being an exceptionally entertaining game. It also came with several story-lines at the end of it. Wow, Matt Ryan morphed into an elite QB before our eyes! Wow, the reffing in the game was questionable! Wow, Joe Flacco can't get off to a good start on the road! Wow, the Ravens defense is no longer one to be feared!

Lost in the shuffle of the hoop-la was a terrible decision by Mike Smith that almost wound up costing the Falcons the game. Early in the 4th quarter, Ryan dumped the ball off to Roddy White for a touchdown that seemed like it may have been the nail in the coffin for the Ravens. The score put the Falcons up 19-7 with 11:39 to play.

And Mike Smith sent in the kicking team to kick the extra point.

If you've been watching this season at all, you know the end of the story. Matt Ryan leads a terrific, final minute drive; capping it with a perfect down-field TD pass to White. But the decision to go for one instead of two in that spot should be under far more scrutiny than it seems to be.

11:39 is precisely the spot where a team should always go for two points when taking a 12 point lead...
- There isn't really enough time for a team to get a TD, xpt and two field goals.
- There is plenty of time for a team to get two TDs.
- The team losing will always need more than a TD and FG to tie or win the game.

And had the Falcons lost the game, the decision could easily have been argued to have been one of if not the most critical one that cost the Falcons the game. Go for two and make it, and you're at least going to force OT, rather than be required to drive the field or face a loss. It's one Smith should probably be taking more heat for than he seems to be.

It also seems to be a shining example of how results oriented the media is when it comes to sports.

Read more...

Josh Wilson And Relative Value

The Wilson trade probably would never have crossed my radar if one of the principals wasn't the Ravens and if my two co-bloggers weren't Raven fans. But one was and they are and as a result Jim and Chris and I had a good time with some back and forth exchange on the day following the trade.



The impetus for this post though is from our discussion of whether an absolute value for Josh Wilson can really be calculated. Okay, it wasn't exactly that since we never really discussed it but we talked all around the question. At one point Jim wrote:

Bill James wrote something many years ago, about how his default position was always that professional baseball men were professionals, and you have to assume they know more than you do. He goes on: "And then came Don Zimmer."

There's always going to be some room for idiots at the top in football, because the cause-&-effect is not always clear when teams win and lose. Luck is a big factor. But football people can't really believe (can't afford to believe?) the extent to which luck determines their results. And who knows if "personnel evaluation" is even the most important thing that owners look for in hiring a GM. There are all those aspects of the job we don't see: negotiating contracts, handling the stadium and all the people who make that go, travel, arranging training camp, hiring coaches and hiring the training staff, hiring the scouting staff, handling their travel, etc etc. It seems possible that a guy could be a good GM and not have any skill at evaluating players.

There's also the situation where two GMs could hold very differing ratings of one particular player, and it's not that one of them is right and the other's an idiot, but that they have different "philosophies" of that particular position. For example, a tall statue pocket passer is going to seem like a better player to the guy who comes from the Coryell-Zampese passing school (like Cam Cameron), than he would to a pure West Cost offense guy (like Holmgren or Shanahan). Likewise a small-armed accurate good-decision-maker QB is going to seem like a better player to the WCO guys than to the other school. Some players fit your system, and some players don't. The Ravens wouldn't draft a lot of the defensive players that Indy drafts at LB, from my take of some stuff Eric DaCosta has said in interviews, because they would be too small to set the edge on running plays in the Ravens 3-4 D. But they work great in Indy's D. (The Steelers and I think Patriots tend to draft the same defensive players the Ravens do.) Shanahan's Broncos could draft those small O-linemen, because they had a way to use them, but most teams didn't want them.

A guy like Josh Wilson is almost the textbook case of a situation where scouting/coaching philosophies will change the way you rate him. He's a productive player with bad measurables. Maybe he's too small to fit "the Seahawks System". Ozzie sees a playmaker and leader, a guy with a lot of speed and heart at a position where the Ravens have a need, and he grabs him. Ozzie has spoken before about how Ted Marchibroda taught him to not get too hung up on "measurables", watch how a guy plays. And Wilson will help the Ravens during the regular season. But the size is a real thing. If Wilson is covering Randy Moss in the AFC Championship Game, we can't be surprised or disappointed if Moss catches the TD right over Wilson. That's part of the package.

which is probably better than anything I can add here, but I still think it is an interesting question. 'What is Josh Wilson worth?'

From an obvious perspective, the Ravens perceived his worth to be greater than the Seahawks, otherwise a trade could never have happened. Wilson was highly drafted and productive at times but could never crack the lineup on a full time basis. With Marcus Trufant and Kelly Jennings ahead of him, and with younger players (Walter Thurmond and Roy Lewis) developing rapidly behind him it wasn't at all clear where Wilson fit on the depth chart.

On the other hand the Ravens have been dealing with nicked up corners for the entire offseason. Their top three corners are each dealing with injury, and with their best lost for the season. Wilson represents great importance to them, particularly considering that their are otherwise poised to contend for a championship. Wilson could be the difference between and early season victory and loss, a difference that could cascade into significant playoff implications.

This really isn't about whether Wilson was a fungible commodity to the Seahawks (he was) or whether the Ravens really needed to acquire a player like him (they did), but rather how the question of how the market was set for this kind of player.

Last winter a fairly large number of starting players changed teams for picks in the 4th - 6th round range. Kerry Rhodes, Bryant McFadden and Sheldon Brown are probably the most relevant because they are each cornerbacks who are probably relatively more valuable than Josh Wilson. Only Brown - who was traded for a 4th - garnered a greater return than Wilson.

So it seems that Wilson went for a premium. There was an additional hidden premium to the trade as well. Roster spots are finite and as with any supply/demand question represents a value to the team. Presumably Wilson would not have been cut, so trading him allows Seattle to keep a player who they otherwise wouldn't. Likewise, acquiring Wilson requires Baltimore to cut a player. I would be the first to agree that the last player on a 53 man roster isn't terribly significant, but it isn't entirely without significance either.

So what we see here, if I am right, is that Wilson actually returned a greater value to Seattle than he probably would have if traded over the winter. I am certain that we are seeing supply dry up so close to the season, which makes acquiring players much more difficult.

While first reactions were overwhelmingly positive for the Ravens - which they should have been - it also seems that Seattle made out much better than it initially appeared.

Read more...

Bulger, Martz and not wanting to disturb Cutler

Over on the Ravens site I read, the admin noted that it was interesting the Bears - with Martz, wh has a connection with Bulger - weren't interested in him.

"It’s a bit interesting that the Chicago Bears didn’t make a play for Marc Bulger. Given Bulger’s ties to Mike Martz one might safely conclude that the fit was a natural. Could Martz know something that the Ravens don’t?"

I'm actually not convinced this was anything more than a play to keep from disturbing Cutler. Let's think back to a year and a half ago, when Josh McDaniels apparently inquired about Matt Cassel. We all remember the subsequent Cutler hissy-fit, right? A prolonged, ugly fight developed which resulted in Cutler crying his way out of town where the Broncos salvaged the situation by turning the guy who led the NFL in INTs last year into Kyle Orton, Knowshon Moreno, a complicated set of traded picks that probably just resulted in some portion of the Tim Tebow pick and maybe a handful of other stuff. Neither team made out particularly well in the deal although we can probably best say the Broncos got screwed least.

Bottom line though, bringing Bulger into Chicago would have brought about questions of whether or not Cutler was going to get pushed for his starting job. We can safely assume Cutler doesn't react well to being pushed for his job, and the Bears aren't likely to trade a guy they just extended to 2013 for $30MM. So the lack of even inquiry there is probably more due to not wanting to rock the boat than anything else.



Bulger, on the other hand, brings immediate legitimacy to the Ravens backup QB spot. Word was that Flacco was actually more hurt than many were led to believe last year, and that if they were confident at all in their backup QBs, they'd have sat him for a couple games to let him heal. The Ravens almost seem to be taking an "all in" attitude toward this season. They've beefed up their weakest position by bringing in Boldin and Stallworth (and retaining Mason). And now they've added significant depth where they had poor depth prior to this year; both by signing Bulger at QB, and by signing Ken Hamlin and Walt Harris in their defensive backfield. It could be argued Harris and Hamlin may be a move to protect whether or not Ed Reed will retire, but that still seems unlikely at least for now. But either way, they've added some significant pieces to a roster that has already taken them to three playoff game wins the previous two seasons. They clearly seem to be gearing up for a major push this season.

I actually somewhat wonder how much may be related to wanting to win prior to the prospective lock-out...

Read more...

Vegas, Baby

My wife and I went on our semi-annual trip to Las Vegas last week. It wound up being a great sports week, much of it football related. I'll pass on the football stuff here.



On Thursday we originally had reservations at Nine, which is my favorite restaurant on the planet (the steak is melt-in-your-mouth delicious). After pestering my wife endlessly about this snaffoo, she agreed to cancel a reservation at a different restaurant on Weds, and moved the Nine reservations to that day to be free to spend the draft in the Wynn's (where we were staying) sports book.

We wound up looking around for other places to go, and saw Lagasse's Stadium actually residing right next door. I called to ask what they were doing for the draft, and they said they were going to have a bunch of ex-NFL players there for a panel discussion prior to the draft, and then watch the draft on the big screen. For those that have never seen it, the main seating area looks like this. We took a reservation, and wound up on one of those couches, which surprised us. The only "hook" was a minimum of $100 spent on food and drink. Between the two of us, over a four or five hour period, that would be no problem, even with me on a diet.

The couches were plush and we arrived at 3:30 to hang before the draft started at 4:30 (PT remember, not EST). The NFL players were a little disappointing. Seth Joyner was the "big name" and he didn't get there till 4:00. AJ Feely and Jerry Porter were the only other two I knew. Melanie and I wound up enjoying each other's company and watching the Pens game on another TV (there is one at every table outside the main seating area) more than listening to what those guys had to say.

Watching the draft in this setting was perfect. You can see there's the big screen in the center, but also a bunch of other screens along the side. I had them stick the Pens game on one of them, so I could listen to what was happening during the draft, while watching the action in the Pens game. Talk about a perfect way to spend an evening. Around pick #20, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson took the booth behind us. I was tempted to say hi, but I hate bothering people like that as I imagine many of them hate random people they don't know saying hi just to say hi.

The experience had a major damper put on it right as the Pats were on the clock and I was hoping the Ravens might move up a spot to get Dez Bryant. Suddenly, they switch the main board over to the Lakers game, which also switched the sound over. So I could see what was happening, but this isn't really satisfactory, especially since it's not on a big screen that's easy to see. This, as I'm sure you can imagine, infuriated more than just me. I talked to a manager, who said they can't do anything about it cause the Palazzo sports book runs the tv and has the final say. To appease us, the mgr told us we wouldn't have to spend the $100 limit (thanks...I'd already spent $97 of it), and took us to a private viewing room to watch the rest of the draft. A moderate solution and a damper on an otherwise pretty awesome experience. Still, certainly beat watching it on my couch at home, even though that would have been $97 cheaper.

On Saturday we had to fly home at 7:30 AM, which meant getting up at 4:30 AM. I am a night owl, and I play poker, so clearly the correct decision was simply to stay up and play all night. After hopping a few tables, around 3 AM I landed on a NL $1/$3 table with an extremely large guy that looked like he could play linebacker half way across the table from me. The guy on my right - seeing me decked out in my Joe Flacco jersey and fitted Ravens cap - asked who we got in the draft. I told him Kindle and Cody and some TE from Oregon, and he says "Dickson? Oh you'll love him!" Turns out the guy's from Oregon. After a few minutes of chatter, the big LB-lookin' dude says "So how long you lived in Baltimore?"

I told him it wasn't me, but most of my family lived or lives there, and told him where my dad went to high school and where my uncle currently lives. He said he grew up on the south-east side of the city. So then the conversation proceeds:

Me: "So, you follow the Ravens?"

Him: "Yeah, you could say that."

"Cause you look like you might play for them."

"You know all the players?"

"... I mean...I know the names. I don't know all the faces that go with them."

"You ever heard of [x]?"

"Yeah... Wait, is that you?"

"No no, but I'm his cousin. Lived with him, just recently moved out here though."

I won't say who the player is cause I didn't tell him I'd be sharing the conversation specifics at all, but the player is a pass rusher (LB or DE) with the Ravens. I asked him something that may not really be PC, but has really been burning a hole in my brain for years.

"So, the Ravens get Kindle with their first pick, which a lot of people are pretty excited about cause he's such a good prospect. I'm curious if your cousin - and players in general in those spots - get excited about those picks though, or if they don't like them. Cause while it seems to be a great pick, that could be his job."

He said that's something that's always in the back of the family's mind, but they don't really talk about it with the player. He doesn't really know what his cousin's reaction is specifically...when he talks to him, he just asks how things are going and lets him say something if he wants to and not if he doesn't. I think that answered the question as much as could be expected.

For my final hour and a half we chatted here and there about Ravens football, and I told him good luck to his cousin as I left, which he said he'd relay to him. Not that I expect it to happen, but it was cool to get to chat with someone with some inside scoop on things.

All in all a great sports/football week, considering we weren't going out there to do anything sports related specifically.

Read more...

What the Ravens Got in Boldin

With the Ravens recent acquisition of Anquan Boldin, many have said the Ravens are better, having addressed their biggest need. But you also hear a good bit about what a risk the Ravens are taking, counting on a receiver soon to be 30, oft injured and coming where his production may have been bolstered by a stellar quarterback and top flight receiver across from him.

While it’s true that this isn’t a no-risk move for the Ravens – receivers, upon moving teams, underperform to expectations more than they overperform – the risks aren’t overly significant. And the reward could be tremendous.

The injury concerns
For all the concerns about how he's frequently injured and fragile and Ravens fans should be concerned about him missing time, Boldin actually averages 13.5 games played per season. He's only played in 16 games twice, but he's also only played less than 12 games once, his second season.

The production as a result of his circumstances vs. his talent
Despite the criticism that he's hurt every year and he's more productive playing in the offense in which he's played, the reality is that he's one of the best receivers drafted this decade. But there are some that have claimed he wouldn't be nearly as productive without Warner as his QB and Fitz playing by his side.

But there are serious flaws with such an assertion. First, Warner hasn't always been his QB. He's produced well with Blake, McCown and Leinart. In fact, his most productive season, 2005, was one in which McCown threw 40% of the passes; and Warner, who threw most of the rest, boasted only an 85.8 QB rating, his lowest as a Cardinal and second lowest in any season in which he threw more than 150 passes.

Second, he’s produced without Fitzgerald playing along side him. His rookie season was one of his most productive, while Fitzgerald was still a Pitt Panther. In 2006, in three games that Fitzgerald missed, he averaged 80 yards per game.

And finally, playing along-side a great wide receiver does not make you a great receiver by default. Look at one of the best receivers in the league, Andre Johnson, as a great example of this. No one playing along side him has ever had 900 receiving yards, and only one – Walter in ’08 – has had over 700 receiving yards. Marques Coltson has yet to see a consistently producing receiver across the hash marks from him. Others include the Panther’s Steve Smith, Dwayne Bowe, Roddy White and Vincent Jackson. A receiver doesn’t simply become productive when playing across from another great receiver.

The performance
Meanwhile, Boldin’s performance truly has been one of the more underrated in the league, despite the fact that he's very highly respected. In the past 15 years, 183 receivers have been drafted and have caught more than 50 passes in the NFL. The list includes guys like Marvin Harrison, Randy Moss, Andre Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald. Here’s how Boldin stacks up against all 182 of them, according to Pro-Football-Reference.
- No one has more receptions per game at 6.17 per.
- No one has more yards per game at 79.16 per. #2 on the list - Andre Johnson - is more than a yard per game behind him. #5 on the list - Marques Colston - is nearly 8 yards per game behind him.
- Only 8 players have scored more TDs per game at 0.463 per.
- Only 4 players have more total receptions per season.
- Only 7 players have more total yards per season.
- He is #17 overall in TDs per season.
- Only one season has he had fewer than 71 YPG, and has never had fewer than 5 rec/game..

The bottom line
The bottom line is, you don’t put up the fabulous productivity numbers that Boldin has put up without having exceptional talent. The Ravens are getting one of the most productive receivers in the NFL, and in fact, the most productive receiver in the NFL when healthy. This must be tempered with the expectation that he will likely miss some games over the next few years. But in the games in which he plays, Ravens fans should expect he is the significant upgrade at the position for which they’ve been begging.

Read more...

Weather hits the NFL

This morning there were reports that the Bears didn't make it to Baltimore for their game on Sunday. I live in Richmond, and was planning on coming up for this game. Thanks to VA being in a state of emergency, I won't be going up tomorrow. I'm not even certain I'll be able to drive out of my neighborhood even if I wanted to.

The game was already moved to 4 PM due to the weather. But it might be interesting if the Bears can't get in until Sunday afternoon. Do they push it to Monday night? If they do have to push it, when will it be broadcast? In Richmond, the Skins are the team with primary coverage, so they'd broadcast that game if only on one channel...but FOX may still have rights to the game so I might luck out and get it anyway.

Either way, it's good and bad for the Ravens and all bad for the Bears. The Bears have plans disrupted and may have to fly in tomorrow morning which should mean Cutler would be likely yawning through his huddles. The Ravens get to face them which is good, but bad because they face the Steelers on a short week.

Weather sucks.

Read more...

Ravens Face Difficult Times Ahead

In light of a hard-fought game where the Ravens ultimately made more mistakes than the Colts, which almost unquestionably cost them the game, the Ravens sit at .500 with more questions than answers. How good are they, really? Why can’t they seem to beat the great teams? Can they make a playoff push?

The argument has been made that the Ravens are only a few plays away from being an 8-2 or even a 9-1 team. And while this is an accurate statement, it can also be said about a lot of other NFL teams. Time and again, we’ve seen teams dramatically over or under perform their expectations by consistently winning or losing close games against solid opponents. (Cincinnati is one of the teams this season over performing because of this.)

But the Ravens are facing problems deeper than simply a few missed plays. They are in a precarious position in which – upon closer look – they’re more likely to have to go into rebuilding mode than attempting to plug a hole or two, to make a Superbowl run again next season.

The problem is two-fold. First, while the Ravens really have fallen only a couple plays short in close games, you cannot point to just one position or one or two specific players that didn’t make plays. The Ravens don’t just have one or two holes, they have several where they lack talent. Second, several positions currently considered solid or strong are stocked with old players that will very soon suffer a performance decline. Let’s examine both in more depth.

Lack of talent in several positions

The Ravens currently have several holes created by a lack of talent in several different positions. In no particular order:

Wide receiver – It’s no secret that the Ravens suffer from a tremendous lack of talent at the wide receiver position. Their only viable starter is Derrick Mason, who – while still performing – is not the receiver he once was. The rest of the crew are a smattering of slot-at-best receivers.

Interior offensive line – Ben Grubbs has been a severe disappointment as a first round pick. The rotating RG position between Yanda and Chester could easily be upgraded. Matt Birk started the year playing very well in his first three games, but since then has missed blocks and been beaten at the point of attack. This entire unit isn’t terrible, but it is also not good.

Tight end – Todd Heap is playing okay football. But he’s consistently injured for the last several years and is not as effective as he once was. LJ Smith has not made an impact.

Interior defensive line – While Ngata has played well, Gregg and crew have under performed and have not dominated the line as much as they have in the past.

Edge rusher – Suggs has played well against the run and in coverage, but is not having a good year rushing the passer. Pryce is okay but not consistently getting pressure. Jarret Johnson leads the Ravens with 6 sacks on a team that ranks t16-19 in the NFL. The Ravens need to generate more pressure on the QB to help their mediocre secondary perform better.

Inside/outside linebacker – Depending on if we’re in a 3-4 or a 4-3 formation, Tavares Gooden has shown athletic ability, but not instinct. Ray Lewis and Jarret Johnson have played well (Johnson has arguably been the best defensive player this season), but the Ravens have struggled to get consistent play out of whatever third and fourth LB sees the field.

Cornerback – While Foxworth is playing okay, Fabian Washington – now out for the year – has played poorly and looks completely different than he did last year. While Webb looks like he can make the second half of a solid starting tandem with Foxworth, Chris Carr has played poorly, and Frank Walker has earned his spot on the bench.

Safety – Put aside Ed Reed’s terrible decision to attempt a lateral…he’s made decisions like those for years. Like them or hate them (I personally hate them), sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. Dawan Landry has been arguably the worst starting safety in the NFL prior to the last two games.

Kicker – Hauschka’s problems were well documented and resulted in his being cut. Billy Cundiff has been brought in and made 5/6 against Indi. The 30 yarder he missed was due to a bad snap, but Cundiff has hit less than 75% in his career, and is decidedly unimpressive from 40+. It is unlikely that he is a long term solution.

Aging at several positions

The Ravens will soon have holes at positions that aren’t currently considered holes due to players aging. From oldest down:

Derrick Mason (35) – Our only solid WR is our oldest and a FA this off-season. Players at this position do not typically decline gradually, their production falls off a cliff. Even if re-signed, how long can we count on him?

Trevor Pryce (34) – Years of wear & tear have taken their toll. His performance is suffering, and it’s not likely to get better.

Ray Lewis (34) – Lewis has been so great for so long it’s hard to imagine him not playing well. But linebackers that play well beyond their early 30s are exceptionally rare, and Lewis is unlikely to be able to maintain this level for more than another year or two.

Kelly Gregg (33) – Already showing signs of wear and tear from years of grinding bodies and getting nicked up, Gregg is close to becoming completely ineffective.

Matt Birk (33) – On the other side of Gregg, he suffers the same problem as Gregg. Guys like Pryce, Lewis, Gregg and Birk – guys that spend years pounding their huge bodies into other huge bodies, tend not to last even into their mid-thirties.

Ed Reed (31) – While not terribly old, he suffers from a debilitating nerve impingement, which is causing him great pain. While not a guarantee, it wouldn’t shock me to see him retire in another year or two because of it.

Bottom line

So let’s recap, and we’ll just look at the starters – 22 + a punter and kicker for 24 total starting positions. Positions we either currently have a deficit or soon will are:
- WR x 2
- OL x 3
- TE
- DT
- DE
- LB x 2
- CB ? (Webb may solve this one)
- S x 2
- K
That is 13 out of 24 positions that are or soon will be holes for the Ravens. Ten of them are already playing below average.

I am not claiming that we need to have dominant players in all of these positions. The best teams in the NFL don’t have dominant players at every position. However, the best teams in the NFL are teams that have a few dominant players, and solid performers everywhere else. The Steelers, Colts, Patriots and Giants – who have combined to win seven of the last eight Superbowls – fit that description very well.

In order for the Ravens to be a legitimate Superbowl contender, they need to find more than just a couple answers. They need to find viable performers at several positions.

And as Ravens fans, we need to be prepared for it to take a few years to adequately fill those holes.

Read more...

When winning is losing

The Ravens played just well enough to beat what is possibly the worst team in the NFL and possibly the worst offense in the history of the modern NFL. I need to look at data, but the Browns are on pace to score only 139 points this season. For some perspective, through nine games, there are only two other teams that haven't yet scored 139 points (Raiders & Rams).

The Ravens look like a team going nowhere quickly. More concerning is the fact that the Ravens are a team that looks like they're about to enter a rebuilding phase, and comments from Ozzie Newsome give no indication that the front office is mentally preparing for anything other than attempting to plug a few holes to try to win a championship.

Ravens haters will relish it. But as a fan, I'm very concerned that starting next year, the team could take some pretty big steps back. It was the right decision to try to go for the championship this year. Coming off last season, they looked like a team that could shoot the moon. But that time looks like it's past. Last night, they were in a dog-fight with the lowly Browns. If they want to avoid more of those over the next five years, they need to come to terms quickly with the fact that they should be tearing down and readying for a rebuild.

Read more...

A look at Joe Flacco at mid-season

I’ve gotten my hands on a wealth of data through the entire NFL season, thanks to the Football Outsiders game charting project. Thanks to that data, I was able to cut down into some very specific data regarding Joe Flacco’s statistics. I’m not talking about his overall stats. I’m talking about being able to look at things like how he does on 3rd down with 3-9 yards to go when the opposition is winning. Thanks to this, I wrote an article for profootball24x7 (which I'll link here once it gets published).

I cut Flacco’s passing data using the following criteria:
- “No plays” (basically penalties accepted) were not considered
- Who’s winning – Baltimore, the opponent, or a tie game
- What down it is
- Result of the pass – Complete, incomplete, intercepted, sacked, intentional grounding or aborted snap
----- There was only one intentional grounding (in the Pats game) and one aborted snap (the Denver game, where the snap hit Heap)
- Distance to go for a first down
----- Long = 10+ yards
----- Med = 4-9 yards
----- Short = 3 or fewer yards
----- This was a somewhat arbitrary cut. C’est la vie.


So for instance, I can tell you that on third downs with 10 or more yards to go, when the Ravens are losing, Flacco is 5/8 for 56 yards, converting a first down two of the eight times and not throwing a TD nor an INT, and was sacked twice.

In addition, I’ve recorded the number of plays we’ve run in certain situations. Not surprisingly, when losing and facing 3rd and long, the Ravens have attempted a pass ten out of ten times.

Some general observations about some various situations…

Flacco’s 3rd down passing mirrors his complete passing stats.
On third downs, Flacco is 53/83 (64%) for 540 yards (6.5 YPA) with 5 TDs and 3 INTs for an 87.4 QB rating. This is comparable to his 90.2 overall rating, where the only measurable difference is in his YPA. He’s taken 5 of his 17 sacks (29%) on 3rd downs. But the Ravens have had only 88 third downs in 309 passing plays (28%).

Generally, it’s a good sign that Flacco is as good on third downs as he is on first, second and fourth downs. This is typically a pressure down, and defenses are typically playing the pass more frequently, especially in medium and long situations. He has converted 38 of all 88 attempts into first downs or touchdowns (43%). In third and medium/long situations, he’s converted 33 of 82 (40%).

When the Ravens are losing, Flacco is solid, but can improve
When playing from behind, it shouldn’t be too surprising to find that quarterbacks’ don’t perform as well. Typically a team has to pass more, so the defense is playing against the pass. The Ravens are no exception. They ran a passing play on 68% of all plays when losing, vs. 53% when tied or ahead.

Flacco’s passer rating is a paltry 76.4, but primarily due to the fact that his TD:INT ratio is fairly poor compared to the rest of the time. Flacco is 85/139 (61%) for 940 yards (6.8 YPA) with 3 TDs and 4 INTs. He’s taken 10 sacks.

Of note, much of the worst of his numbers was during the Bengals game. Flacco never ran a play when tied or ahead. The Bengals game was by far his worst game, completing 56% with 2 INTs and 4 sacks. Cut that game out, and Flacco’s numbers look like this:
67/107 (63%), 745 yards (7.0 YPA), 3 TDs and 2 INTs with 6 sacks
Once again, his stats look very similar to his full stats. Now, you can’t simply take that game out of the mix…it happened, and it was a poor performance. But in general, Flacco doesn’t perform too badly when losing.

However, there’s room for improvement. Take Peyton Manning as what could be considered the gold standard. Manning’s numbers this year when behind look like this:
96/133 (72%), 1,120 yards (8.4 YPA), 7 TDs, 1 INT and 5 sacks
His 111.7 rating is better than his 105.2 rating through the whole season. His 7:1 TD:INT ratio is gaudy. Ideally, we’d like Flacco when losing to be as good as he is when winning or tied. Honestly, we’d like him to be better, but it’s telling that even Peyton Manning isn’t much better when behind as when tied or ahead.

Flacco has been very impressive with medium yardage (4-9 yds)
This isn’t just third down. It’s any down, and that can include first downs when they’ve accepted a 5 yard penalty, or first and goal from the 4-9 yard line.

Flacco boasts an impressive 104.2 QB rating, albeit thanks to a stellar TD:INT ratio. His stats look like this:
63/101 (63%), 657 yards (6.5 YPA), 7 TD, 0 INTs, 3 sacks
Flacco converted 48 of 104 (46%). Compare this to his converting 108 of 309 (35%) total passing plays he’s run, and 53 of 185 attempts from long (10+ yards) situations (29%).

His performance with moderate yardage to go is his money situation; he’s a top flight QB when facing medium yardage to go. And interestingly, the Ravens run passing plays on 68% of these plays. His performance in these situations may have something to do with that.

Bottom line
In general, Flacco performs fairly well in tough situations, but has room for improvement. He’s young, and it’s good to see he’s playing as well as he is in these situations.

Better yet, I think we should expect that as Flacco matures – and hopefully gets better receivers eventually – we’ll see continued improvement in these numbers as well. Part of his education is hopefully going to involve playing better in the pressure situations, and we’ve already seen him playing fairly well in them.

It’s an encouraging sign that we have a legitimately good quarterback under center, not just one that’s good any time except when it counts.

Read more...

Ravens Showcase an Efficient Offense

An article I wrote for profootball24x7.com...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Opening the NFL season, the Ravens ran up 501 yards of total offense with Joe Flacco throwing for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns. This past Sunday, they tallied another 300+ yards, and are currently (prior to the Colts/Dolphins MNF tilt) second in the league in both yards and points. It couldn’t be a more positive sign that a much maligned offense has finally found its general, and is ready to pull its weight with a defense that has been dominant for a decade.

But this isn’t your typical big-time offense. Read more here.

Read more...